GUNTER: Walterdale bridge will brighten Edmonton

Photos: Walterdale Bridge concept art

As plans for the new $132-million Walterdale Bridge replacement forge ahead, some councillors say they want the city to keep the old structure too. "It's a historical bridge," Mayor Stephen Mandel said of the nearly 100-year-old overpass. "It would be nice to be able to paint it, bring it back to life." The transportation and public works committee voted Tuesday to pass along the Walterdale Bridge replacement's conceptual plans to city council for approval. The $132-million signature arch-style structure will replace the current Walterdale Bridge, which was built in 1914.

City of Edmonton Hand out

As plans for the new $132-million Walterdale Bridge replacement forge ahead, some councillors say they want the city to keep the old structure too. "It's a historical bridge," Mayor Stephen Mandel said of the nearly 100-year-old overpass. "It would be nice to be able to paint it, bring it back to life." The transportation and public works committee voted Tuesday to pass along the Walterdale Bridge replacement's conceptual plans to city council for approval. The $132-million signature arch-style structure will replace the current Walterdale Bridge, which was built in 1914.

City of Edmonton Hand out

As plans for the new $132-million Walterdale Bridge replacement forge ahead, some councillors say they want the city to keep the old structure too. "It's a historical bridge," Mayor Stephen Mandel said of the nearly 100-year-old overpass. "It would be nice to be able to paint it, bring it back to life." The transportation and public works committee voted Tuesday to pass along the Walterdale Bridge replacement's conceptual plans to city council for approval. The $132-million signature arch-style structure will replace the current Walterdale Bridge, which was built in 1914.

City of Edmonton Hand out

As plans for the new $132-million Walterdale Bridge replacement forge ahead, some councillors say they want the city to keep the old structure too. "It's a historical bridge," Mayor Stephen Mandel said of the nearly 100-year-old overpass. "It would be nice to be able to paint it, bring it back to life." The transportation and public works committee voted Tuesday to pass along the Walterdale Bridge replacement's conceptual plans to city council for approval. The $132-million signature arch-style structure will replace the current Walterdale Bridge, which was built in 1914.

City of Edmonton Hand out

As plans for the new $132-million Walterdale Bridge replacement forge ahead, some councillors say they want the city to keep the old structure too. "It's a historical bridge," Mayor Stephen Mandel said of the nearly 100-year-old overpass. "It would be nice to be able to paint it, bring it back to life." The transportation and public works committee voted Tuesday to pass along the Walterdale Bridge replacement's conceptual plans to city council for approval. The $132-million signature arch-style structure will replace the current Walterdale Bridge, which was built in 1914.

City of Edmonton Hand out

As plans for the new $132-million Walterdale Bridge replacement forge ahead, some councillors say they want the city to keep the old structure too. "It's a historical bridge," Mayor Stephen Mandel said of the nearly 100-year-old overpass. "It would be nice to be able to paint it, bring it back to life." The transportation and public works committee voted Tuesday to pass along the Walterdale Bridge replacement's conceptual plans to city council for approval. The $132-million signature arch-style structure will replace the current Walterdale Bridge, which was built in 1914.

Related Stories

Back in the early ‘60s, when women wore their hair high and men drove finned cars half the length of a basketball court – my Auntie Harriett and Uncle Grice were the doyens of the small Saskatchewan town in which they lived.

Whenever some new fashion or gadget became all the rage, Grice (who was my grandmother’s brother) was always the first person to buy one.

So it was that while everyone else bought real Christmas trees, Harriett and Grice bought a white tinsel one. The purchase was talked about in hushed tones all around town, and mostly not in a positive light.

It was almost a scandal when my great aunt and uncle put the tree in the front window of their home for all to see, then set up a spotlight on the floor that shone up at the tree while a celluloid rotated in front of the bulb alternately illuminating the fake fir yellow, blue, red and green.

Even at the ripe old age of six or seven I thought the display was tacky, regardless of whether everyone else in the family gushed over Grice and Harriett’s trendsetting ways.

I was put in mind of my dear, departed relative’s Xmas bush this week when city council’s executive committee approved a feasibility study into stringing “decorative lights” on the High Level bridge.

The artist’s concept of the scheme is appalling: violet deck, royal blue support pillars, with alternating violet and blue lights strung over the top of the century-old structure. It might, indeed, be so bad it would bump white tinsel trees up the beauty scale.

Mayor Stephen Mandel proclaimed the idea fantastic. He explained he had just returned from China where it is a habit to decorate bridges. “It’s beautiful.” He also insisted the idea could take Edmonton into the future.

Oh, spare me. We might all debate the attractiveness or not of the bridge-lighting scheme. (I for one think it would make the ancient spinster look, at best, like an over-painted middle-aged cougar.) But take us into the future? Let’s cut the hyperbole.

This is not unlike council’s 2007 scheme to build large, Welcome-to-Edmonton entrance markers at the city’s western and eastern approaches. Then city taxpayers were assured the glass pyramids that would have vaulted over the Yellowhead’s roadbeds (at a cost of at least $600,000 per), would become tourist attractions. The euphoric thinking, apparently, was that Albertans and other Canadians would flock from Busby and Fawcett, Enderby and Piapot just to gaze upon the gleaming monuments.

No window-dressing project is going to change Edmonton’s direction, which needs little changing to begin with.

Having said all that, though, it might surprise some to learn that I am in favour of city council authorizing $130 million for a new Walterdale bridge from the southside into downtown – complete with lights to brighten it up at night.

I will remain skeptical that even the graceful, single-span arch design chosen by the city will become a landmark, “an icon that will come to symbolize our city.” (Just what kind of joy juice are these rah-rah boosters drinking?)

Still, as a city we have put too little energy and enthusiasm into our public architecture in the past. Aside from city hall, the Peter Hemingway Fitness and Leisure Centre and the Telus World of Science, too many of our schools, libraries and arenas look like boxes. They have the pizzazz of a Walmart.

That is slowly changing. The Lois Hole Library and the soon-to-be completed Meadowlark Library are helping add a little visual interest to the city.

The new Walterdale bridge, on which the lights will not be some careless add-on, will add even more.

GUNTER: Walterdale bridge will brighten Edmonton

Back in the early ‘60s, when women wore their hair high and men drove finned cars half the length of a basketball court – my Auntie Harriett and Uncle Grice were the doyens of the small Saskatchewan town in which they lived.

Whenever some new fashion or gadget became all the rage, Grice (who was my grandmother’s brother) was always the first person to buy one.

So it was that while everyone else bought real Christmas trees, Harriett and Grice bought a white tinsel one. The purchase was talked about in hushed tones all around town, and mostly not in a positive light.

It was almost a scandal when my great aunt and uncle put the tree in the front window of their home for all to see, then set up a spotlight on the floor that shone up at the tree while a celluloid rotated in front of the bulb alternately illuminating the fake fir yellow, blue, red and green.

Albert Foulston was arrested at an Edmonton home Tuesday on a dark, wintery night. Police allege Foulston and two other suspects had earlier been involved in an assault and robbery at a modest motel nearby.